July 2018 Texas Bar Exam Forum

[Guccifer91]

Anyone thinking about February already? We are supposed to be peaking right now but the only thing peaking right now is my doubt

my last 6-7 MBE PQs have all been mid 70s +/- 2 pts, so thats kinda on auto pilot and im not gonna do much more there...ive been hitting P&E notecards every day for the last week for an hour, so that stuff is burned into my brain already. however, im starting to shit myself re: my weaker essay subjects ...real property kickin my ass

What are these P & E notecards that you speak of?

[Superbeast]

Anyone thinking about February already? We are supposed to be peaking right now but the only thing peaking right now is my doubt

my last 6-7 MBE PQs have all been mid 70s +/- 2 pts, so thats kinda on auto pilot and im not gonna do much more there...ive been hitting P&E notecards every day for the last week for an hour, so that stuff is burned into my brain already. however, im starting to shit myself re: my weaker essay subjects ...real property kickin my ass

What are these P & E notecards that you speak of?

I made flashcards for every P&E rule from the last 2 years + whatever flashcards Themis gave us that I was missing + any questions on the practice P&E's that I hadn't seen before...I've seen people passing around a brainscape link that has a short answer set that looks pretty similar, pretty sure they found it just by googling.

[Guccifer91]

What is with the bar examiners hiding the 8 ball on some of these past exam answers? Especially with regards to deadlines. "Almost everyone got this question wrong and didn't know what the deadline was for filing" Are we supposed to look through hundreds of pages of crim pro to find this shit ourselves?

[whosinthehousejc]

What is with the bar examiners hiding the 8 ball on some of these past exam answers? Especially with regards to deadlines. "Almost everyone got this question wrong and didn't know what the deadline was for filing" Are we supposed to look through hundreds of pages of crim pro to find this shit ourselves?

the recent crim P&E "answers" are complete garbage.

[Guccifer91]

What is with the bar examiners hiding the 8 ball on some of these past exam answers? Especially with regards to deadlines. "Almost everyone got this question wrong and didn't know what the deadline was for filing" Are we supposed to look through hundreds of pages of crim pro to find this shit ourselves?

the recent crim P&E "answers" are complete garbage.

Seeing this now. Does anyone have February 2018 or July 2017 answers for the Crim Pro portion that they can send me? This is outrageous, I thought I had crim pro in the bank until now

[Guccifer91]

What the **** is a misdemeanor

[whosinthehousejc]

What the **** is a misdemeanor

Haha yeah, wasn’t expecting to see that.

[Guccifer91]

What the **** is a misdemeanor

Haha yeah, wasn’t expecting to see that.

Civ Pro was as expected, but i felt like crim pro definitely had a few questions I had to guess on. How was timing on the MPT? I would say I kinda did not finish it

[Guccifer91]

What the **** is a misdemeanor

Haha yeah, wasn’t expecting to see that.

Theft of water though?

[Superbeast]

What the **** is a misdemeanor

Haha yeah, wasn’t expecting to see that.

Civ Pro was as expected, but i felt like crim pro definitely had a few questions I had to guess on. How was timing on the MPT? I would say I kinda did not finish it

I was confident with MPT going in, got a 5/6 on Themis graded, and did about 4-5 extra ones. I completely shit the bed today on the MPT. Horrible time management, average at best application on 2 of the 3 issues. The other issue was a shitshow. Overall, it was a disaster with no flow or organization. My headers looked decent but that's about it. Was expecting the MPT to give me a nice cushion for these 2 days but I guess not =/

Pretty sure I nailed 36 of the 40 P&E's, so this is helping me forget about my shitshow morning.

[Guccifer91]

What the **** is a misdemeanor

Haha yeah, wasn’t expecting to see that.

Civ Pro was as expected, but i felt like crim pro definitely had a few questions I had to guess on. How was timing on the MPT? I would say I kinda did not finish it

I was confident with MPT going in, got a 5/6 on Themis graded, and did about 4-5 extra ones. I completely shit the bed today on the MPT. Horrible time management, average at best application on 2 of the 3 issues. The other issue was a shitshow. Overall, it was a disaster with no flow or organization. My headers looked decent but that's about it. Was expecting the MPT to give me a nice cushion for these 2 days but I guess not =/

Pretty sure I nailed 36 of the 40 P&E's, so this is helping me forget about my shitshow morning.

I think I went 20/20 on civ pro but crim pro I would say 10/20 were not solid at all. Do you know how partial credit works with these? I tried to add fluff and hedge my bets on questions, like with the theft of water one. I have so many questions about those questions

MPT, I would say the same. I think its fair to say each case went with a header on the MPT. The fact that there were three issues instead of two definitely led to a time crunch for many I would guess

[Superbeast]

I'm sure some peeps will be curious about how their performance today is gonna play out, so here's something useful I found from the Feb thread

Basically everything is based off the MBE percentiles and scaled score. So, for example, last February the MBE median was 136.4 (February is always lower because of the number of retakers, who tend to do worse on average than first-time takers). Each exam they standardize the scores to the two previous MBEs by using some questions that were given on those two previous exams. If this year's examinees do better on those questions, the MBE median will go up. Or vice versa. For the sake of argument let's say this year's examinees do the same as last February.

Now move along to the other parts: MPT is given a raw score of 0 to 6; P/E is scored at 5 raw points per answer for a potential 0 to 200 raw score; and essays are scored at 25 raw points each (but it doesn't really matter because of standardization); I think they may also standardize the essay raw scores before adding them together.

They then look at your raw scores for each section and see where it lines up in terms of percentiles. So let's assume that a 110 raw score on the P/E is the median. They'll then say, "Okay, this person was median on the P/E, and the corresponding median MBE scaled score is 136.4, so this person gets a 136.4 scaled score on their P/E." Or if the examinee's P/E score was 99th percentile, they'll say "well, 99th percentile on the MBE was a 185 scaled score [or whatever 99th %ile is], so this person got a 185 scaled PE score."

After they get all your scaled scores for the sections, they then add them up by taking 1/2 of yoru P/E and MPT scores and twice your Essay and MBE scores. For example, if you had a 120 P/E, 140 MPT, 135 MBE and 137 Essay:

120 * .5 = 60
140 * .5 = 70
135 * 2 = 270
137 * 2 = 274
------------
Total = 674

At this point, if it's 675 or higher, you pass. If it's less than 670, you fail. If it's 670 to 674, your essays get automatically regraded. During the automatic regrade, your score can only go up; it can't go down. The regrader does not know what the first grade was, but puts his/her own raw score down. If the regrade raw score is higher than the first raw score, they recalculate your total score using the new raw score; if the regrade raw is lower than your first raw score, your score remains the same. For this reason, very few people actually fail with a 670-674.

As for your score report, if you pass, you will get two pieces of data: 1) overall score; 2) MBE score (since some states will allow you to bring your MBE score in and not have to retake that part of the exam). If you fail, they'll tell your scaled scores and your percentiles for each section of the exam. You can request additional information as well, but only if you fail.

[radar31520]

I was just wondering.... can any of you guys hear me?

[dstars823]

anyone else here having issues uploading?

[texanslimjim]

Friend and I are both unable to upload our exams. Looks like the ILGExam server is down or something.

Anyone else in Houston? What a fucking shitshow.

[Baaah]

I was having issues uploading... I restarted my computer and then everything uploaded fine.

[rbbt808488000416]

What the **** is a misdemeanor

Haha yeah, wasn’t expecting to see that.

Theft of water though?

yeah what were they getting at with this question? the one offense rule?

[NonbindingPrecedent]

anyone else here having issues uploading?

Had the same issue at first. Said I was not online (when I was online). I called the ILG people and they said their server was overloaded and to try again in a couple hours (as it usually slows down further away from the exam). I was just able to get on and upload it and got confirmation.

If it persists, call ILG at 833-454-7877. Pressing option 1 connects you to a voicemail. Option 4 (for exam site technicians) connects you to a live person. They said they are staffed through the evening for people still having issues.

[texanslimjim]

Restarting my computer worked. Thanks guys.

[NonbindingPrecedent]

What the **** is a misdemeanor

Haha yeah, wasn’t expecting to see that.

Theft of water though?

yeah what were they getting at with this question? the one offense rule?

Seemed to me like a multiplicitous prosecution issue (which is rooted in the Fifth amendment similar to Double Jeopardy). Not sure if Texas Crim Pro has a special name or rule, but basically just said it was unconstitutional.

[whosinthehousejc]

What the **** is a misdemeanor

Haha yeah, wasn’t expecting to see that.

Theft of water though?

yeah what were they getting at with this question? the one offense rule?

I guessed with double jeopardy, Blockburger, same elements and same criminal episode? obviously different res, but that's all I could come up with.

[Itwasascam]

Just to confirm, everyone that was able to upload you just got one email right? Wasnt sure if were suppose to get one for the MPT and one for P&E.

Also did you guys save the file before clicking finish or just finish when you conpleted each section

[whosinthehousejc]

Just to confirm, everyone that was able to upload you just got one email right? Wasnt sure if were suppose to get one for the MPT and one for P&E.

Also did you guys save the file before clicking finish or just finish when you conpleted each section

Deadline extended to Saturday per email.

[Guccifer91]

What the **** is a misdemeanor

Haha yeah, wasn’t expecting to see that.

Theft of water though?

yeah what were they getting at with this question? the one offense rule?

Seemed to me like a multiplicitous prosecution issue (which is rooted in the Fifth amendment similar to Double Jeopardy). Not sure if Texas Crim Pro has a special name or rule, but basically just said it was unconstitutional.

Hey, hypothetically if i had an expert testify and you were a prosecutor that wanted records on which she based her opinion, would you be able to get that or something else, if anything?

What are the first two steps in a criminal trial?

What is the procedure called when defendant enters her plea, other than being called the entry of the plea?

All hypo questions

[Guccifer91]

Is there anything needed to authenticate a video? What additional testimony could a shop owner provide to properly allow the prosecutor to submit surveillance footage of me stealing from BestBuy in my trial for grand larceny